Cap. 337 Art. 20Remission of duty on goods found short.

(1) No import duty shall be remitted either in whole or in part on any shortage of goods, whether of internals of packages, or of whole packages, whatever is the cause of such shortage.

(2) Import duty is, however, remitted where the shortage consists of whole packages of goods and the owner of such goods furnishes evidence to the satisfaction of the Commissioner -

(i) in respect of goods other than goods imported in containers or on commercial road vehicles, that such packages had not been discharged from the importing vessel; or

(ii) in respect of goods imported in containers or on commercial road vehicles, that such packages had not been loaded in the container or on the commercial road vehicle: Provided that in such cases if immediately before the examination of the imported goods by the Commissioner the foreign and local seals are found to be intact by the Commissioner, this fact may be considered as satisfactory evidence for the purpose of this sub-article; or

(iii) that such packages had been deposited either in a government warehouse or a warehouse or place of security appointed by virtue of the provisions of article 27(1) of the Customs Ordinance but are not produced at the request of an officer of the Customs.

(3) The provisions of the foregoing sub-article shall not apply to goods deposited in a warehouse or place of security appointed by virtue of the provisions of article 27(1) of the Customs Ordinance for the exclusive deposit of goods belonging to a specified person.

(4) A request for the remission of import duty shall be submitted in writing to the Commissioner not later than two years from the date of payment of such duty.

(5) For the purposes of this article -

"container" means an article of transport equipment (lift-van, movable tank or other similar structure):

(i) fully or partially enclosed to constitute a compartment intended for containing goods;

(ii) of a permanent character and accordingly strong enough to be suitable for repeated use;

(iii) specially designed to facilitate the transport of goods by one or more modes of transport without intermediate re-loading;

(iv) designed for ready handling, particularly when being transferred from one mode of transport to another;

(v) designed to be easy to fill and to empty; and

(vi) having an internal volume of one cubic metre or more; "road vehicle" means a power driven road vehicle and any trailer or semi-trailer designed to be coupled thereto.